Sigur Ros

Background

Sigur Ros is an Icelandic alternative band that got started in 1994. After landing a local record contract, the band began releasing albums (Von [Hope] in 1997 and Von Brigoi [Hope Alteration], a remix album, in 1998), gaining nationwide popularity and finally hitting international success with their third work Agaetis Byrjun (A Good Beginning) in 1999. Agaetis Byrjun went on to win Iceland’s Best Album of the Century Award in 2000. Since then, Sigur Ros has released two more albums, ( ) and Takk (Thanks) and has achieved critical acclaim worldwide – particularly in Britain and the U.S. In America, their songs have been featured on soundtracks to TV series and advertisements, movies, and television events for over six years. Not bad for a band that is based about 4,000 miles away and who rarely tours anywhere in the U.S. outside of New York.

Sound

Sigur Ros’ music is ethereal, ambient, and minimalistic…yet on a deeper level, incredibly complex and emotive. They tend to use many instruments (on Agaetis Byrjun they use over 24) and short, poetic lyrics to perfect a simple sound and feel. In 2001 the band held a competition offering an authentic band drum to the best mathematical equation of Sigur Ros’ sound without using the words “glacial”, “elves”, “whales”, “volcanic”, “landscape”, or “angels”. The winner described Sigur Ros as following:
state of mind [desire + expectation] in which 1 believes 1's desires = realised * [imperceptible, darkly romantic drops of aural power + tinted radiance + unadulterated purity]² / [delicate, transcendent swim - slow-burning sincere melancholic edge] + vivid soundscapes that = outer reaches of their collective imaginations + expansive, voluminous meisterwork bristling with beauty/intensity = 10minute opiums = innovative art = sonic masterpieces = 100% sigur rós.

....powerful stuff.

Lost in Translation

Sigur Ros is one of the most mysterious and unique bands I have ever encountered on my musical adventures – first of all because I don’t understand their original lyrics. (No, I don’t speak Icelandic). There is an element of poetry – connection, cohesion, and melodic flow between words - in all spoken languages, which is especially prominent in its native music. Sigur Ros writes beautiful, imagery-drenched elegiac lyrics that lose half their meaning when translated into clumsy English. In one of their most famous songs, Hoppípolla (Jumping in Puddles), “Rennblautur / Allur rennvotur / Engin gúmmístígvél / Hlaupandi inn í okkur / Vill springa út úr skel” becomes “Soaked /Completely drenched / No rubber boots / Running in us / Want to erupt from a shell” . Obviously we’re losing a little something here, which makes me wonder what more this song would represent to an Icelander than it could ever mean to me.

Second, Sigur Ros compiled their fourth album, ( ) , in a fictitious language that they called Hopelandic. Syllabically it sounds similar to Icelandic but is actually gibberish – meaningless sounds carefully chosen to maximize the emotional impact and message of the background instruments. The album is, in effect, lyricless: an unheard-of concept coming from a band that normally uses spoken language. Sigur Ros explained their decision by saying that the listeners were supposed to interpret their own meanings and write them in the blank pages of the album booklet.
Weird as that might seem, this is why I love Sigur Ros. Their music is designed to represent sensation based solely on the crescendo of a piano or hum of a bow-played guitar…a rare talent. They appreciate that the most important, moving, and powerful things in life are unspoken. They understand that the purpose of music is to convey emotion when words simply fail to suffice.



I will leave you with the deeply disturbing but beautiful music video of Untitled 1 – Best Video of the Year at the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards.